The Forgotten One of the Triad: Why Did Rene Worms, and Not Emile Durkheim or Gabriel Tarde, Fail ?

Rene Worms (1870-1926) was a brilliant young philosopher who entered sociology at the beginning of the 1890’ while combining a career of university professor and high civil servant. His first contribution was institutional, with the creation of the first French academic journal dedicated to sociology (the Revue internationale de sociologie in 1893), one of the first monographic series (Bibliothèque de sociologie internationale) and national and international organizations (Institut international de sociologie, Société de sociologie de Paris). He gathered dozens of intellectuals around these different initiatives. Theoretically, he was at first a strong advocate of organicism, even if he was very open to other theories and currents in his journal and his collection. Very few academic works have been published about this author, considering he played a minor in the history of French sociology. Without rejecting totally this assertion, this communication will try to reassess his role in the development of the discipline, and to provide with explanations of his failure and of his forgotten memory. We will focus on several factors such as his will to internationalize the discipline while it was still very weak nationally, or the consequences of his theoretical choice. We shall also insist on the paradoxes of the durkheimian memory for the writing of the history of French sociology.